tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362Sat, 01 Aug 2015 10:11:32 +0000travel'merican road'merican road #3sciencereviewroadrunnerMumbai assaultedBombaycricket'merican road #2deathPakistanJB D'SouzatennispeacemathematicsShiv SenagujaratcontestBinayak SenElectionsladakhphotosealinkAnna Hazareeducationhealth careruralsouth africaBJPcorruptionkala ghodaAyodhyaKashmirLok SabhaSection 377povertyradiatrainAdvaniBhopalMichael JacksonTom PietrasikencountersobamatatatendulkarAmitabh BachchanBenazirHaitiMangalore crashManipurMartin GardnerRahul DravidSamuelsonTEDbandhcanadaegyptgandhikaratevisavolcanoDeath Ends Funi'm not leftist, i'm not rightist, i'm a typist
<br> in there like swimwearhttp://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/noreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)Blogger2065125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-4760719442740643783Tue, 23 Jun 2015 08:47:00 +00002015-06-23T14:17:32.013+05:30John and the phone scam <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My university buddy John wrote recently from the States. He has found an intriguing way to ... well, perhaps I'll just let him explain. Here is his mail, verbatim. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hi Dilip,<br /><br />There is a phone scam that has been going around in the US for a number of years. Someone calls (always from an Indian call center with a lot of noise in the background) saying they are from Microsoft, and they noticed that your PC is spewing out packets and harming the performance of the Internet. They then ask you to walk through a sequence of steps that if done would give someone the ability to completely control your Windows machine remotely and install all sorts of malware and what not.<br /><br />The first time they called me I had been taking a nap, so I naively&nbsp; asked which of my machines was causing the problem, and told them I have Mac computers so it could not be me. After I hung up, I Googled to see what the exact scam entailed and it made sense.<br /><br />Since then, I've had great fun toying with these guys, and there is a connection to you.<br /><br />I pretend that I am following their commands, and they ask me to bring a command line prompt and tell them what I see. Then they ask me to type stuff and tell them what I see. At a certain point, I tell them "the screen says B H E N C H O D.... What does that mean?" They are astonished and asked me to read it back three or four times. Then they get really angry. I've been called a "bloody bastard" and more.<br /><br />The connection is that you taught me this word and its meaning more than 30 years ago, and said that it is quite powerful. You were right!!! :-)<br /><br />This just happened again on Friday. The caller denied knowing what the phrase meant, even though he was clearly rattled. I told him I would Google it "to see what this error message stood for". I then said "it says you are a sister f******". He then insisted that the "you" in the Google result referred to me and not him. I could barely contain myself, and pretended to Google it again, and said "no, it is saying that it refers to you" and he got even more upset.<br /><br />This is a really sinister thing they are doing, so I don't mind wasting their time.<br /><br />Thanks for teaching me that phrase! :-)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">John</div></div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2015/06/john-and-phone-scam.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-4328819785539480033Fri, 19 Jun 2015 18:14:00 +00002015-06-19T23:44:22.958+05:30What if they gave a triple-century and noone came?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><br />The new issue of <i>Wisden</i>'s quarterly of cricket essays and long-form writing, <a href="http://www.thenightwatchman.net/"><i>The Nightwatchman</i></a>, is out. I have an essay in it, about watching the Ranji Trophy final at the Wankhede Stadium in Bombay last March.<br /><br />Sadly, the issue is only available in print or e-book versions. You can buy it at their website, which I urge you to do. But I'm hoping you'd like to read my essay -- it is appended below.<br /><br />Comments welcome!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;***</div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;<b>What if they gave a triple-century and noone came?</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>The Ranji final in a time of the World Cup</b></div><b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br />When Karun Nair got to 300, late on the third day, I looked around and counted as best I could. It wasn’t hard. The great majority of cheering spectators was in the Sunil Gavaskar Stand alongside me, but a small, disproportionately vociferous lot was to our left in the Divecha Stand – between us and the pavilion, where the cricketers emerged from and disappeared into. But don’t be fooled by that phrase “great majority”: in a stadium that can seat something like 35,000, those present here numbered about… 125.<br /><br />If Nair had scored two runs for each man – the audience was mostly male – who watched him reach his triple ton, he would not have reached it. Luckily he didn’t approach his task quite like that. But that count might just have summed up this match. <br /><br />There were other ways the lack of interest in the 2015 Ranji Trophy final hit me. The first morning (8 March), for example, I arrived at the Wankhede Stadium at 9.15am – 15 minutes before the start. The gate was locked and a guard in a smart dark-blue uniform asked why I was there. “For the Ranji match,” I said. “Ah, but then you might as well go have some tea and take a nap,” he replied. “The match won’t start till about 10.30 or 11.” When I told him the scheduled start was 9.30, he looked disbelieving, but reluctantly opened the gate for me. I was the first fan in the Gavaskar Stand, though Divecha had an already voluble handful, waving green and gold flags.<br /><br />Two days later, I arrived at the stadium ten minutes before the start. How many in the stadium, you think? Not just in my stand, but in the whole complete stadium. Including me, the count was – get this – one. Have you ever been the sole spectator in a massive stadium? It’s breathtaking. I urge you to try it. Maybe at next year’s Ranji final.<br /><br />This dearth of fans has persisted at Ranji games despite tickets being free, which by itself says something about the state of long-form cricket in India. The Ranji final is effectively the Super Bowl of domestic cricket, but those who run Indian cricket know they cannot ask would-be attendees to cough up even a nominal amount – there’d be no attendees at all then. So it’s free, but the administrators are stingy about where they allow us freeloaders to sit: only in the east (Gavaskar) stand, subject to the fierce afternoon sun, and side-on to the pitch so there’s no way to get a sense of bowlers’ spin or swing. <br /><br />Imagine the Wankhede as the face of a watch, with the pavilion at 9 o’clock. Throughout this match, the arc from 9 clockwise to 6 had absolutely nobody in it. The arc from 6 (where I sat) clockwise back to 9 had – at its most crowded – 150 spectators. <br /><br />Thus did Karnataka and Tamil Nadu do battle for the Ranji Trophy. Which itself brought on one last niggle about those who run Indian cricket: why did they schedule this match at, of all places, a neutral venue like the Wankhede? Why not in Bangalore or Chennai, where home-team enthusiasm, if nothing else, might have swelled the crowd to – dream big, son! – 200?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br />It’s now commonplace to bemoan the steady sidelining of the Ranji Trophy. How is this sedate form of the game to compete with the razzmatazz of the IPL? (No free entry to IPL games, in case you were wondering.) Or with the World Cup, going on at the time in Australia and New Zealand?<br /><br />The short answer has got to be: there really is no competition. I found that out for myself the night before the game started. A friend was over for dinner and I mentioned my cricket-watching plans. “Oh, so you’ll see all those cheerleaders, then?” she asked. (Let’s leave aside her cricket illiteracy on several counts.) When I explained there would be no cheerleaders, she wrinkled her nose and looked bewildered: “Why are you going, then?”<br /><br />Was this a commentary on cricket: without cheerleaders, this match could hardly be much of a spectacle? Or was this a commentary on me: she could not believe I would make the effort to attend an event free of cheerleaders?<br /><br />Either way, the point was made: the Ranji tournament – even the final – interests few. This is a difficult pill to swallow when I wallow, as I often do, in the nostalgia of too many days of my youth spent listening to cricket on the radio. All long-form then, of course. My Rajasthan college campus came to a standstill, I remember, for a few days in the mid-1970s when Delhi hosted Bombay in a Ranji final. I no longer recall who scored and who picked up wickets. I do remember several stellar names in both teams: Gavaskar, the Mankad brothers, Solkar, Gidwani, Bedi, the Amarnath brothers, Madan Lal. Bombay won a gripping, seesawing match in front of a full house whose baying we could hear, on our tinny medium-wave sets, all the way in Rajasthan. The match divided the campus right down the middle: the guy in the room behind me was a Delhi fanatic who yelled good-natured abuse at me in the middle of the night through the little grille that separated our rooms. Staunch Bombay fan that I was, I went one-up – I flung eggs through the same grille. Ah, the passions the Ranji Trophy aroused. Once. <br /><br />Though both have impressive Ranji résumés, neither Bombay nor Delhi made it to the final in 2015. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, fierce southern rivals, did. Both teams were also stacked with stellar names: Murali Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, L Balaji, Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Robin Uthappa. If this had been the mid-1970s all over again, they’d have played in front of another baying full house. But when you have 150 or fewer, the baying is rather muted.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br />The elephant in the room – or at the Wankhede – was that the Ranji final happened smack in the middle of the World Cup. So the stands were empty not only because cricket fans have lost interest in the Ranji Trophy, but also because they were following goings-on – 50 overs at a time – in faraway Australia and New Zealand. So it was a wonder by itself that, during the World Cup, as many as 150 people turned up to watch a Ranji game. That wonder was what pulled me to the Wankhede.<br /><br />Most of the much-anticipated league matches of the Cup – India–Pakistan, Australia–New Zealand, Australia–England – were done by the time the Ranji final came around. But there were still games every day, including an India game (against Ireland) on the third. I travelled to the Wankhede each morning feeling slightly sorry for these Karnataka and Tamil Nadu cricketers – some of whom had probably hoped to be playing for India, all of whom probably wanted to watch Cup games on TV. How were they going to focus instead on this match?<br /><br />In the asking of that question lies the certainty that I’m not – could never have been – a professional cricketer. Cup or no Cup, these 22 men played out an intense match filled with superb batting, bowling and fielding performances, including a spectacular reflex catch at silly point that made me long for an instant replay. One-sided though the match was – a Karnataka victory seeming inevitable as early as the second day – there was verve and vigour on display throughout.<br /><br />But if that described the players’ approach to the game, the audience cared significantly less. Day one passed with regular updates about the nearly simultaneous Australia–Sri Lanka game, an evidently more attractive proposition than either this match or New Zealand–Afghanistan, also that day. Amid the regular sharing of scores in the stands, a friend sent me a text: “Maxwell going berserk against SL!” My beeping phone caught the attention of a thick-set older man nearby. “What’s the score?” he asked, automatically assuming that if I was getting text messages while watching the cricket, they must be about the World Cup. <br /><br />If Maxwell was going berserk somewhere in Australia that day, Vinay Kumar and his merry Karnataka men were running roughshod over Tamil Nadu. Wickets fell with depressing regularity. Normally that’s the kind of cricket I like – give me regular wickets any day over batsmen dominating the game. But perhaps my otherwise-dormant Tamil roots made this procession disheartening. Only their captain and opener, Mukund, showed any spunk. A curious inwardly-bent right knee is his initial movement as the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. Surely not what the coaches suggest? But he defended well – and stroked several boundaries too – on his way to 35. He must have been dismayed, though, as he watched teammate after teammate capitulate. Across the aisle from where I was sitting, three Tamil speakers who had travelled from Madras (they used their city’s old name) were reduced to glum automatons after a vocal and cheery start. They shook their heads in silence, despair mounting with each wicket. Tamil Nadu subsided to 134 – a barely adequate score in T20, let alone the five-day game. After this first-innings train-wreck, their hopes of winning the Trophy hung by a fingernail.<br /><br />But Tamil Nadu perked up within the hour, as did the men who had travelled from Madras. Their fast bowler L Balaji – best known for his feats during India’s tour of Pakistan in 2004 – carved through Karnataka’s top order. It was probably his wide, ready smile that endeared him to our western neighbours: he was the most popular member of that team, “Balaji, Balaji” screamed by full-throated crowds at every Pakistani stadium. He had a reasonably good tour, but hasn’t played much for India since. Today, with his gentle run-up and explosion through the crease, he worked up some serious pace to take three wickets – his pacer partner Parameswaran took one – leaving Karnataka, at an overnight score 49 for 4, pondering the vicissitudes of cricket. One afternoon, you’re walking on cloud nine because you’ve gone through Tamil Nadu like a knife through hot butter. Not long after, Tamil Nadu returns the favour. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br />The next morning, though, things don’t start well. Not in the stands, not out in the field for Tamil Nadu. I reach the Wankhede as the first over of the day ends, turn to two young men fiddling with smartphones and ask: “Who bowled that over?” <br /><br />One responds: “<i>Kya maloom, sab toh kale dikhte hain!</i>” (“Who knows, they all look black!”) <br /><br />When I express some disgust at this, his friend rounds on me: “What, are you from Tamil Nadu? Who do you support?” There’s the implication that, being dark myself, I must back those darkies from TN. Whatever. <br /><br />In the middle, Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Mithun, the nightwatchman, hold firm. The Tamil Nadu fielders clap each other’s efforts, urging their bowlers on to make inroads into Karnataka beyond 49 for 4. But the score chugs along smoothly, Mithun responsible for most of it. <br /><br />About half an hour into the day, a large group of boys in school uniform appears behind me. “Who’s playing?” they ask of no one in particular. The skin-obsessives have a swift reply: “It’s India and Pakistan, playing a Test match.” Much backslapping and chortling that they have managed this snappy answer. The schoolboys mill around for a while, then turn and leave.<br /><br />Soon after, a huge lbw appeal persuades the umpire to raise his finger, slow and studied, and Mithun walks off reluctantly. Replacing him is KL Rahul, who made a smooth century for India against Australia in the recent Test series. With pink highlights on his shoes, blue and pink gloves, and several fluorescent green patches on his bat, he is quite the vision: when Rahul runs, it’s like a small carnival of colour cavorting down the pitch.<br /><br />And he runs a lot. For Rahul and Nair proceed to bat Tamil Nadu into submission. No more wickets fall that day, which ends with Karnataka at 323 for 5 – nearly 200 runs in front with centuries to both batsmen. It is a skilful display from the Karnataka pair – who never once look in trouble – but for this fan of bowling and wickets, it is a stultifying passage of play. <br /><br />Soon after lunch the following day, as India battles Ireland over in Australia – amid more score-sharing – Tamil Nadu has their first wicket in over seven hours: they stop Rahul in full flow at 188. But by then Karnataka has 470 on the board, Nair has swept past 200, and there’s no doubt where the Trophy is going this year. Time to declare, surely? Yet much like an Energizer bunny, Karnataka just motors on and on and on. Even the few folks in attendance are baffled. One or two actually shout out loud: why are they batting on? The milestones drift past: Karnataka’s 500, 600, Nair’s 300. Time to declare? No. Nair is out for 328 the next morning. Now? No. Karnataka reaches 700, captain Vinay Kumar gets a century. Maybe now? No. <br /><br />Tamil Nadu finally bowls Karnataka out for 762 – 628 runs in front. What was the point of piling on such a huge lead, except to keep Tamil Nadu toiling in the oppressive heat? Who really cares that – over the remaining day and a half – Tamil Nadu slashes their way to 411 and still loses by an innings and plenty?<br /><br />Not too many in the thin audience, that’s for sure. A man, his wife and a kid — all in orange, oddly — walk past me and down to the bottom row. Their backs to the cricketing action, they take a number of selfies. In the middle of it all, she takes a call, nodding her head furiously, the other two looking impatient. Then they’re gone. Ah, the passions the Ranji Trophy arouses. </div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2015/06/what-if-they-gave-triple-century-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-1766984244046092470Wed, 23 Apr 2014 12:31:00 +00002014-04-23T18:03:30.039+05:30Your vote tomorrow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A note I sent out to my friends in Bombay today, April 23 2014.<br /><br />--- <br /><br />Dear friend and fellow-citizen of this vast fascinating maddening incredible city:<br /><br />Tomorrow is the day we'll all vote. May I count on our years of friendship to be bold enough to say a few things about that?<br /><br />1. First and above all, please vote. <br /><br />2. You probably know my thoughts on this, but nevertheless: Yes, I hope you will not vote for a candidate whose victory will help Narendra Modi become our Prime Minister. At this late stage, I'm not going to burden you with reading material. Instead, just three points:<br /><br />- 2a. This is a man who, in 2007, appointed a murderer (Maya Kodnani) as his Minister for Women's Development and Child Welfare. I realize Modi is speaking an inclusive, near-faultless language these days. But he's aiming for the nation's highest elected office: he knows better than us all the need to come across as inclusive, thus to speak this language. Therefore I judge him not on today's rhetoric, but on his record. Among much else in that record is his Kodnani appointment. There is no explanation for this that makes Modi look good. <br /><br />- 2b. I realize we all see what we want to see in Gujarat. But that alone should tell us that the story of a state far better than every other in every respect has holes in it. <br /><br />- 2c. What worries me most about a Modi government is not Modi himself, but the loose cannons his ascent will give legitimacy and voice to. We've already seen examples like Giriraj Singh, Praveen Togadia and Ramdas Kadam. When a major politician announces that (for example) those who oppose him must be sent to Pakistan -- well, that kind of attitude simply worries me.<br /><br />3. Finally, I also realize that I may have stepped on a few toes with this mail. Still, I trust that whatever our different views of politics, we can and will remain friends. That's also my faith in democracy, that we have different views that we are unafraid to express. This country has seen too much that divides us. I believe you will go to vote with the same hopes for a better tomorrow as I do. If you finally choose a different route to that better place than I do, that's your prerogative and mine. But if we let that choice itself interfere in our relationships, we let the divides win. I don't plan to let that happen.<br /><br />All good wishes tomorrow.<br /><br />Your friend,<br />dilip.<br /><br />(Comments intentionally disabled until after the vote).</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2014/04/your-vote-tomorrow.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-7575233496672332056Sat, 22 Feb 2014 09:33:00 +00002014-02-22T15:03:11.824+05:30Raptor Red<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Does it say something that my favourite book of 2013 is one I read for the second time? (The first? When it was released, in 1996). "Raptor Red" is a delightful novel -- but for me, not so much because it is an engrossing story, which it is, or beautifully written, which it isn't. Nor even because its dinosaur protagonists are so engaging.<br /><br />What makes this book memorable is what it says about an unsung virtue of science: how scientists build edifices of reason from the tiniest scraps of evidence. After all, dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and all we know about them comes from the fossil record. Yet palaeontologist Robert Bakker wrote this book to support his thesis that they were "warm-blooded, active and social animals." <br /><br />It positively warms the cockles of my heart that a scientist proposes this, and plausibly, after poring over rocks buried for aeons. Then he writes a beguiling novel. Wow.<br /><br /><u>Raptor Red</u> by Robert T Bakker<br />Bantam Books, 1995</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2014/02/raptor-red.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-5031912244609494360Sat, 19 Jan 2013 06:43:00 +00002013-01-19T12:13:49.394+05:30How Rahul Gandhi blew it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />My column in the Daily Beast is about the Gandhi family's reaction to the Delhi gangrape. Please do take a look: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/19/how-rahul-gandhi-blew-the-indian-rape-crisis.html">How Rahul Gandhi Blew the Indian Rape Crisis</a><br /><br />Comments welcome, as always.<br /><br /></div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2013/01/how-rahul-gandhi-blew-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-5542464585243195743Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:12:00 +00002013-01-17T22:44:41.645+05:30Know that<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />(A series of tweets that went out earlier this evening. Collected as a single post here).<br /><br />There's an open letter about Gujarat. There's a Vibrant Gujarat summit. And as always, there's plenty of hot-headed defence of Modi.<br /><br />Also as always, his defenders sometimes seem baffled that there are actually some who are not enamoured of him. This is for them.<br /><br />Know that your fellow Indians slaughtered about 1000 fellow Indians in Gujarat in '02. The families of the dead deserve justice.<br /><br />Know that plenty of your fellow Indians don't believe all those families have found justice.<br /><br />Know that plenty of us think justice is fundamental to the functioning of a society.<br /><br />Know that good roads &amp; efficient administration are fine - only what we expect from a government - but don't substitute for justice.<br /><br />Know that victories in elections are also fine - and kudos to Modi for winning - but they don't substitute for justice either.<br /><br />Know that plenty of us believe Modi, as CM, is ultimately responsible for the safety of his state's residents.<br /><br />Know that we believe he failed that responsibility in 2002.<br /><br />Know that we believe he must be held politically accountable for that failure in 2002.<br /><br />Know that it mystifies us that you don't want to hold him politically accountable for that failure. That you instead applaud him.<br /><br />Know that maybe it doesn't mystify us.<br /><br />Know that we will keep the chorus for accountability going until it happens. We're patient.<br /><br />Know that, finally, if you choose to be uncritical fans of Modi, it's not incumbent on the rest of us to be uncritical fans too.<br /><br /></div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2013/01/know-that.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-5887972036318476689Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:45:00 +00002013-01-09T23:11:17.704+05:30Owaisi, Thackeray and 25 crore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div></div><div>Speaking at Nirmal in Andhra Pradesh on December 24 2012, Akbaruddin Owaisi said this:</div><div></div><div><i>If the police are removed for just 15 minutes, 25 crore Muslims in the country will show they are mightier than 100 crore Hindus.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The mention of 25 crore (completely wrong, but never mind) rang a bell. Because on December 9 1992 -- twenty years earlier -- Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena used that same number. In an editorial in his party mouthpiece <i>Saamna</i>, he wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Pakistan need not cross the borders and attack India. 25 crore Muslims in India will stage an armed insurrection. They form one of Pakistan's seven atomic bombs.</i></div><div></div><div>(Note that if 25 crore was wrong in 2012, it was a hell of a lot wronger in 1992, but never mind that as well).</div><div></div><div>Note the (completely justified) uproar over Owaisi's statement. Note how Thackeray was eulogized after his death.<i></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>And if you have any idea, please let me know which of those two statements, if any, should be treated as more offensive and why.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>Postscript:</b> For those who like to quibble, here's another Thackeray statement from twenty years ago yesterday. Just in case you don't remember -- or have chosen to forget -- both these were from the time of the carnage in Bombay, December 1992 and January 1993, that left some 1000 Indians dead.<br /><br />In another editorial in <i>Saamna</i> (January 8 1993), Bal Thackeray wrote:<br /><br /><i>Muslims of Bhendi Bazar, Null Bazar, Dongri and Pydhonie, the areas we call Mini Pakistan ... must be shot on the spot.</i><br /><br />Owaisi has been arrested, and faces charges of (among other things) sedition. What do you think happened to Thackeray? What do you think should have happened to Thackeray?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2013/01/owaisi-thackeray-and-25-crore.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-8269720178534704926Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:08:00 +00002013-01-07T18:38:47.696+05:30Help me support Ummeed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />I'm part of a fundraising effort for an organization called <a href="http://www.ummeed.org/">Ummeed</a>. I'm doing this because I have a personal interest in this: our daughter (now nearly 9) is dyslexic and Ummeed has been a great help to us in diagnosis, treatment and advice. While I'm naturally anxious about how she will cope, Ummeed is the reason I'm confident that she will. <br /><br />And this is why I think Ummeed's work is important. And yet they reach only a fraction of all the children in Bombay with developmental disabilities: the need, as ever, outstrips the capacity to serve it. And this is why I signed up to do this fundraiser for Ummeed.<br /><br />Admittedly I'm no good at this. I've never done it before. I mean, I've never run/walked/biked/cartwheeled for a cause before, I've never asked for pledges/donations before, and I've never walked 55km on a beach in one day before. (About 45 km one day through the forests of Madagascar, but that's a story for another day).<br /><br />But I'm doing all that now. With some 20-25 others, I'm going to walk up and down the 27km+ length of a Goa beach -- totalling about 55km -- on January 12 2013. (Five days away!)<br /><br />So it's this simple: I need your support to help me complete that trek. I need your support to help Ummeed in its work. I'd be grateful for pledges/donations in any amount at all. And if you contribute, I promise to carry your name on a small label on my person. (I've stocked up on pins).<br /><br /><br /><b>Contribution details:</b><br /><br />Your contribution is tax-deductible.<br /><br /><i>In India</i>: Please make your check out to Ummeed Child Development Center and mail it to Ummeed, 1-B, 1/62, Mantri Pride Building,&nbsp; N. M. Joshi Marg, Near Chinchpokli Station (W), Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 011. Alternatively, you can donate online <a href="http://www.giveindia.org/iGive-wwwgiveindiaorgUmmeedCDC">here</a>.<b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><i>Elsewhere (e.g. USA)</i>: Please make your check out to Ummeed Child Development Fund and mail it to 218, Harvard Street, Quincy, MA 02170. Alternatively, donate online <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/55-km-Walk-for-Ummeed-in-South-Goa/377584418999361?sk=app_117708921611213">here</a>.<b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br />Either way, let me know if you donate, either via a comment here<b> </b>or on Twitter (@DeathEndsFun).<br /><b><br /></b><br /><b>Some details about Ummeed:</b><br /><br />Ummeed was started by someone I've known since we were both teenagers, Vibha Krishnamurthy, to work with children with developmental disabilities (which is her specialization). In the past year Ummeed has provided direct services to over 1000 families of such children. Their goal has always been to create best practices, and also work on advocacy, research, and sharing their knowledge through training. <br /><br />Some Ummeed highlights of the past year:<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>They established a brand new social work team to serve low-income families, including educating them about the rights of children with developmental disabilities and taking patient advocacy to another level.<br />&nbsp;</li><li>They benefited thousands of children indirectly by training staff of eight organizations to work with children with developmental disabilities and their families through their Child Development Aide (CDA) program and Mental Health training program. <br />&nbsp;</li><li>They also ran several shorter training programs for schools and NGOs working with children at risk for disabilities.</li></ul><br />However, there are still so many children and families with little or no access to care. Ummeed remains committed to reaching out to them in different ways.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2013/01/help-me-support-ummeed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-7921186023647491059Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:43:00 +00002012-09-12T12:13:17.779+05:30Talk about ethics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I've been trying to leave this post as a comment at this post: <a href="http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/09/all-facts-no-conjecture/">All Facts: No Conjecture</a>, but it has not made it through moderation there. Please read it first.<br /><br />Now ...<br /><br />Let's see what we have here. Halarnkar writes an article. Babu thinks it is "plagiarized". He tells Mishra. Mishra then dissects Halarnkar's article and finds parts of it are not attributed in place to Lappé (Lappé's name and a quote from her do appear later in Halarnkar's article). <br /><br />Fine so far. I have no problem with anyone dissecting anyone's article. <br /><br />First "hmm" moment: Mishra goes public with this dissection, in a post on his own site titled <a href="http://amishra77.com/2012/09/09/samar-halarnkar-and-the-art-of-article-writing/">Samar Halarnkar and Ethics?</a>. There's no attempt made to ask Halarnkar what he has to say, what explanation he might have, so that might at least form part of the post. Any excuse that Mishra did not know how to ask for a response ("how do I ask for a response" are his own words in <a href="https://twitter.com/amishra77/status/245743655397249024">a tweet today</a>) is so much hogwash, because in the post is this sentence: "[Halarnkar] tweets at handle @samar11". <br /><br />Second "hmm" moment: Niti Central then publishes this post <a href="http://www.niticentral.com/2012/09/left-liberal-journalists-and-ethics.html">on their site</a>. Again, there's no attempt made to ask Halarnkar for an explanation. <br /><br />Third "hmm" moment: On the Niti Central site, the post has a different title. It is now "Left liberal journalists and ethics". Whether on Mishra's site or on Niti Central, the post is about ONE journalist, but Mishra and Niti Central have decided that this gives them leverage to question the ethics of ALL "left-liberal" journalists, whoever those are. (Mishra probably telegraphs that intent with this line in his post: "[Halarnkar] is part of an endangered species of 'Indian liberals'"). <br /><br />Mishra and Niti Central want to discuss ethics? Tell me another one. <br /><br />--- <br /><br /><b>Postscript #1</b>: Unlike Mishra's reluctance to ask Halarnkar for a response, I asked Mishra to <a href="https://twitter.com/DeathEndsFun/status/245528109342932992">correct this title</a>. His <a href="https://twitter.com/amishra77/status/245529650628009984">response</a>: "that is part of the story. It is not an error."<br /><br /><b>Postscript #2</b>: As is also well-known by now, Niti Central also posted a piece about Aseem Trivedi that turned out to be taken from an earlier NDTV report. They have removed that now, leaving up only a <a href="http://www.niticentral.com/2012/09/regrettable-error.html">note</a> that speaks of a "regrettable error" by "an enthusiastic junior member of the editorial staff."<br /><br />Funny: for Halarnkar, it's plagiarism. For this junior member, it's enthusiasm. <br /><br />But funnier: I am yet to see anyone -- Mishra, Niti Central or anyone -- putting up a post dissecting that Aseem Trivedi article that copied from NDTV, and calling that post "Right-conservative journalists and ethics".<br /><br />Yes, tell me about ethics.<br /></div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/09/talk-about-ethics_12.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-5707652091000756948Sat, 31 Mar 2012 10:08:00 +00002012-03-31T15:39:46.623+05:30Tenzin arrested<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Why was my friend Tenzin Tsundue arrested before the visit of Chinese Premier Hu? (Who?)<br /><br />* Because ten years ago, he <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jan/22dilip.htm">hung a "Free Tibet" flag</a> from the 14th floor of the Oberoi (now Trident) hotel in Bombay, during the visit of Chinese Premier Zhu? <br /><br />* Because seven years ago, he <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2005/04/his-kind-of-exile.html">hung a "Free Tibet" flag</a> from the top of a building at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen?<br /><br />* Because he might remind Chinese Premiers, and us, about the <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2005/06/quiet-room-dark-night.html">arrest and torture of three nuns</a>?<br /><br />* Because of <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2008/07/earlier-post-here-was-in-effect-one.html">muddle-headed mumbo-jumbo called "realpolitik"</a>? For just two examples, I mean the stuff which <a href="http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2008/03/24/john-87-does-not-apply-to-international-relations/">advises</a> that "<i>India must refrain from going overboard in its support for the Tibetan protests lest this issue upset broader relations with China</i>", and which <a href="http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-analysis.html?showComment=1208508060000#c5671263083605865712">also advises</a> that "<i>It is not in India's interests to antagonise China, a more powerful neighbouring state</i>."<br /><br />* Because … well, you take your pick. <br /><br />We gave the Tibetans shelter when they fled from the excesses of China. Now we arrest them when Chinese premiers come visiting.<br /><br />Seven years ago, I wrote more or less the following three paras. They seem to apply today.<br /><br />Apparently, the equation is simple. China recognizes our annexure of Sikkim. In return we will be silent on Tibet. (What's the difference, I'd like to know, between them going into Tibet and us going into Sikkim?)<br /><br />And sure enough, that's just what has happened. With a certain glee, our press reports that Wen brought with him a map acknowledging our claim on Sikkim. And in return for that measly crumb, we are craven enough to shut up on Tibet.<br /><br />Fortunately, there are Tenzins out there who are neither as craven nor as willing to shut up, arrest or no arrest. Power to your flag, Tenzin. Know this much: you inspire. </div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/tenzin-arrested.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-588834892482865277Sat, 31 Mar 2012 05:33:00 +00002012-03-31T11:03:59.089+05:30Get to the top: About Kota<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have an article in the April issue of <i>Caravan</i> that I've wanted to do for years: about coaching classes ('cram schools", they're sometimes called) in the city of Kota, in Rajasthan. I finally started thinking about it and planning it several months ago, though for various reasons it was only in January this year that I was able to make the trip to Kota. <br /><br />Lots of things to think about there. Pink suits. Parenting Consultants. Graffiti on a temple wall. What we are doing to our kids.<br /><br />Please take a look: <a href="http://caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?Storyid=1352&amp;StoryStyle=FullStory">Get to the Top</a>.<br /><br />And your comments, as always, welcome.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/get-to-top-about-kota.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-7981739001370323414Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:34:00 +00002012-03-30T23:04:54.830+05:30Where the roots are<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My "A Matter of Numbers" column is in today's (Fri Mar 30) edition of <i>Mint</i>. If I had to sum it up in a few words … well, I would have, instead of writing 800+ words. Never mind.<br /><br />It starts with spitting in a bottle (you know who you are, you who told me about this). It goes on from there to discuss hopping about in space. (Yes Vandana, there's a connection). (I think).<br /><br />Go take a look: <a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/03/29205505/Where-the-roots-are.html">Where the Roots are</a>.<br /><br />As always, any comments most welcome.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/my-matter-of-numbers-column-is-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-4660758919594747169Fri, 23 Mar 2012 03:22:00 +00002012-03-23T08:53:15.702+05:30Poverty line(s)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Today's <i>Hindustan Times</i> carries an article I did reacting to the most recent figures about poverty from our Planning Commission. <br /><br />On re-reading it this morning, I'm concerned (always easy to be wiser in hindsight) that I didn't make clear enough my fundamental point: that while the definition of the poverty line had to change, what I'd like to see is how that affects previous estimates of poverty. Why? Because only then can we get an idea of what has really happened to poverty over the years.<br /><br />Absent that, we're left to wonder about numbers like 27%, 37%, 29% and the like. Absent that, a decline from 37% to 29% is hard to comprehend, because earlier estimates were different.<br /><br />I realize it is difficult to apply new methods to old data, but I'd still like to see some attempt to do so, purely so that we can understand poverty trends. <br /><br />In any case, you can read the article <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/It-just-doesn-t-add-up/Article1-829491.aspx">here</a>.<br /><br />Comments welcome.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/poverty-lines.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-6547516465955072580Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:29:00 +00002012-03-21T10:00:37.167+05:30Taj Mahal Foxtrot: a review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Naresh Fernandes's <u>TajMahal Foxtrot</u> is a delicious look at a time, at music, at a city. Fabulous photographs, crisp writing and even a CD. <br /><br />I reviewed it for the January-February issue of <a href="http://www.biblio-india.org/"><i>Biblio</i></a>. Available on that site for free, though you have to register.<br /><br />Here's the review, appended below. Comments welome.<br /><br /><br /><center>***</center><br />Someone asked: isn't it difficult to read a book about jazz when you don't like jazz? Someone knows me well: it's true, I've never cared for the music that the Marsalises and Monks produce. Yet without fully knowing the difference, I've also always liked the brassy sound of big-band, the riffs and improvisations of rocking blues, the infinite sexiness of trumpets and saxophones. No, it wasn't difficult to read this book, because maybe it's not really about jazz, and maybe that doesn't even matter. Yet (again!)&nbsp; sounds from a time that Indian jazz flowered seem somehow to leap off most of its pages (not just because it comes with a CD). This, despite Naresh Fernandes's forlorn observation that "only a pile of yellowing press clippings and faded programme notes remain to fuel our imaginations about what many of these jazz musicians actually sounded like."<br /><br />And in so fuelling, via this book, they soak you in nostalgia. <br /><br />Hard to stave that off. So you can see "Taj Mahal Foxtrot" as another Dr Seuss contraption, this one producing nostalgia on demand. The city Fernandes describes is a long-vanished Bombay, the stuff of memories that there are fewer and fewer people left to hold on to and flesh out. He mines those memories to etch a vivid, vibrant portrait of a city, a too-brief stretch of time, in detail that is loving and thorough. <br /><br />But maybe it's not about nostalgia either. As I neared its end, I wondered about that. What is this book, really? History? Music? Anthropology? Journalism? The urban experience? The indulgence and exploration of a passion? All those? <br /><br />But does it matter?<br /><br />The quantity and quality of research on view here is staggering. Fernandes writes with easy familiarity about musical giants of a time gone by, as if they were walking into our homes to warble out a tune or three. Somewhat amazingly, some actually did just that: they walked into some homes in this city to exchange notes, literally and otherwise, with local musicians and fans. Example: Dave Brubeck, in the '60s. For fans of the man, that must have been a treat like none other. I'm trying to think of a parallel today. Here's one that twangs my chords: the Blasters (not jazz-men, and I'm unabashedly a fan) show up at my front door, and together we belt out "Barefoot Rock" and several more rockabilly classics. Man, what I wouldn't give …<br /><br />It's a memorable feature of this time and place that Fernandes captures for us: at least in jazz, celebrity wasn't a thing made insufferable by ego. What it must have meant to striving young musicians to simply chat with the Gillespies, the Armstrongs, just as friends would. <br /><br />And some of the photographs Fernandes has unearthed capture this mood. With Brubeck, again: in one shot, he's at the piano, pinky straight out as he plays, laughing heartily as the sitar player smiles in harmony. In another, he has his back to the piano and is hunched over, listening intently to a tabla player explain his craft -- I like to think that's what he's doing -- to a roomful of intent listeners. Yet neither photograph even hints that Brubeck is any kind of "outsider": the music and their palaver about it brings him inside in every sense.<br /><br />In some ways, that really sums up "Taj Mahal Foxtrot." For a glorious generation or two, some of the world's most accomplished musicians -- Indians included -- brought their talents here and made music that wove strands into Bombay's story. These strands would later become inextricably a part of this city's own definitive creation: Bollywood, and its music in particular. The great value of this book, it seems to me, is that Fernandes underlines three features of this tale: one, that the music borrowed and incorporated influences from abroad; two, that this process of borrowing, and the intense creativity it stimulated, was Indian in the best way; three, that those are things to celebrate.<br /><br />"For much of its history," Fernandes writes in his preface, "Bombay, like the music I love, encouraged everyone to find their own voices within the loose confines of a stated theme." <br /><br />How do we reconcile that with the parochial bluster that too many celebrate instead today? The empty blowhards, for example, who want those who use the word "Bombay" to be "thrown out" of the city? What's to be said about people who, to beat a jazz cliche into the ground, blow their own trumpets (one of them actually used that phrase in an election rally as I wrote these words) but also insist that others play the same stultifying notes?<br /><br />The real achievement of this book is that Fernandes manages to make jazz a metaphor for the city, for what it once was, what it could be. He does this despite caveats of various kinds. Like: isn't this just one more Western influence we can do without, that there's no reason to mourn losing? Or, this is a story of the Fernandeses and Correas: where are the Guptas and Bansals? Or, isn't this just more gush about folks who have the money and the leisure to devote to jazz, often at the Taj? That is, the elite?<br /><br />That last occurred to Bill Coleman, a "trumpeter-memoirist" in Leon Abbey's visiting band of 1936. They played jazz, he wrote, "for a public that was mostly European -- a very wealthy and select clientele." Journalist Dosoo Karaka listened to the band at the Taj and then noted: "Outside … homeless loiterers of the night, beggar women with half-eaten breasts, poverty on the pavements. It makes me shudder." And in the early 1960s, the visiting American pianist Hampton Hawes realized that "I've never seen anybody as fucked up and pitiful as [in India] … [they] don't even know what a piece of bread is, let alone Stravinsky or Charlie Parker."<br /><br />What's the meaning of jazz when it is surrounded by squalor, when it is a "passion of the privileged" that's indulged at a top-notch city hotel?<br /><br />Questions worth pondering, no doubt. I don't have a better answer to that than to say, read the book. Don't just look at the pictures, read the text. To me, it makes a subtle case in defence of elitism. But a defence in the sense that the elite naturally influence the societies they live in: with their tastes, their intellectual pursuits, and in particular, their values. The joy of "Taj Mahal Foxtrot" is that it reminds us of a time when certain values meant something, when they spoke for a city.<br /><br />To be sure, there are aspects of the book that grate. Half a paragraph is repeated here; over there, another half, or more, is missing. The footnotes are often a delight, but nearing the end of the book, they go haywire: like ghosts, several numbers appear in the text without corresponding notes attached. Photographs appear sometimes a baffling several pages before a reference to the characters in them. In at least one case the caption has no connection to the image, baffling again. The binding on my copy started coming apart ten pages into reading it. And this might be a good place for full disclosure: I'm in the "Acknowlegements" (sic). <br /><br />At the end, I also wished there had been more of Fernandes himself in the book. That may be an odd thing to say, because this is a result of his years of research, a triumph of his dogged and yet impassioned journalism, and the book works because he lets the men and women of an era of jazz speak for themselves. In that sense, this is his style, his body of work. <br /><br />Yet the occasional times when you hear his unvarnished voice only make you wish for more. Like the footnote -- go find it -- about a restaurant whose name stuck "despite it being at variance with the outcome of the conflict" it was named for. Like the way he paints the parallels between trends in jazz and other creative outpourings in India: poetry, literature, theatre, art. Like another footnote -- yep, go find it -- that tells a sparkling story about someone called Karla Pandit.<br /><br />As anyone who has followed his writing knows, Fernandes seamlessly mixes humour, keen observation and an enviable way with words to produce always thought-provoking commentary. <br /><br />Maybe I just wanted more of that commentary than there already is in this book. Consider the eloquent lines with which it ends:<br /><br />"[I]n its heyday, in the three decades from 1935, jazz seemed to perfectly embody the spirit of Bombay, a slightly wild port city that knew that a tune sounded better when it made room for instruments of all timbres and tones; a city that could be really pretty when it took things slow but which gave you a thrill when it was working at double time; a city that forced you to make it up as you went along; a city that gave everyone the space to play their own melody the way they heard it. That era has passed."<br /><br />It has indeed passed. But reminders, like this splendid book, are always welcome. Maybe we can be really pretty again.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/taj-mahal-foxtrot-review.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-4822270367013982694Sat, 10 Mar 2012 20:10:00 +00002012-03-11T01:46:28.048+05:30cricketRahul DravidNo more reason<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">For years now, the only reason I've had for making an effort to watch cricket on TV -- and it is an effort, because I have no TV -- has been Rahul Dravid. For a long time before that, there were two reasons: Brian Lara and Rahul Dravid. <br /><br />Now there are none.<br /><br />I've been wondering just what I found so attractive in these modern greats of an old game. I think (no surprise) it's the visual treat of their styles, the flashing elegance of their strokes. <br /><br />No batsman I know of moved as swiftly and yet delicately on his feet as Lara did. He married that to a bat speed no other batsman could match. Suddenly the ball had rocketed over a despairing bowler's stretching fingers for a straight six, or past a man who'd still be in the act of turning to chase when the ball reached the boundary at cover. That slight crouch, then the precise steps, then the bat like Inigo Montoya's slashing sword, ending up over his right shoulder: as a pure spectacle of batsmanship, Lara had no equal.<br /><br />Except, of course, for Dravid. Three strokes were his alone. The first, that precise pull, the wrists visibly rolling over at just the right instant, the ball seemingly tracing a path perfectly perpendicular to the pitch, all the way to the boundary. The second, that on-drive he played off his pads, leaning forward, his body and the bat and the ball's path, all straight lines. The third, and my favourite by a whisker, that fierce cut in which he seemed almost to be stepping backward as the bat made contact, the image again a splay of straight lines. <br /><br />Lara the sure-footed destroyer. Dravid the master of pure, elegant lines. For me, there were no others.<br /><br />But for me, what made Dravid in particular such a compelling cricketer was the way he put that elegance in the pot with a fistful of grit and a generous helping of grace. I certainly learned the virtues of hard work and determination much later in life than I should have (and too often I have to learn them again). But I know that if I want to teach them to my kids, I could hardly do better than offer them the example of Dravid. Of this man who visibly worked harder than any of his contemporaries at his game, at finding excellence in himself, at finding it anew when it inevitably would fade. <br /><br />More accomplished cricket writers than me have been poetic about Dravid's various bursts of batting splendour: the 180 in Calcutta, the 148 at Leeds, the 233 and 72 in Adelaide, the two half centuries at Kingston and more. But for me his finest moment was last year's tour of England. Not for the runs, plenty though they were. But this was Dravid fighting tigerishly when not a single one of his team-mates seemed up for the fight; this was Dravid showing how much the team and the game mattered to him; this was Dravid painting a canvas of resolve and soul, heart and intellect. This was Dravid setting an example not just to his cricket colleagues, but to us all. <br /><br />To every one of us who, faced with a large, difficult task, thinks "Ahh, I'll give it a shot tomorrow" -- that tomorrow that never comes -- this was Dravid showing that there's only one answer to such dilemmas: Just step forward and do it. No excuses, no dilly-dallying, no shying away, no hiding from yourself above all. None of that. <br /><br />Just do it, that's all.<br /><br />I have no particular interest in one-day cricket or this thing called T20. Power to those who do, and who do well at them. But I get intoxicated with Test cricket. That's because at its best, it ebbs and flows, it exposes, it redeems, it celebrates. It demands that its practitioners give of their best. It shows up the pretenders. It rewards depth and substance, grit and strength. It offers lessons for our own more mundane lives that nevertheless fling challenges at us time and time again.<br /><br />It's for those reasons that Test cricket is so captivating. It's what made Dravid, for me, the consummate Test cricketer. For me, he is India's greatest Test cricketer. For me, that makes him, without doubt, India's greatest cricketer. <br /><br />I can't claim to be a good friend of Dravid. But I have met him a few times -- a meal here, a coffee there -- and he released my book "Roadrunner" at a bookstore in Bangalore. Several days before that evening, in the middle of playing a Test at the Wankhede stadium, he called. "I'm really nervous about speaking at your book function," said this man who faced the fastest and wiliest bowlers in the world for a living. <br /><br />It struck me: for him, this business of speaking about a new book was one more challenge to be faced and overcome. He could have simply shown up and mouthed some platitudes. Instead, he read my book, thought about it, got nervous about it, then came there and said some thoughtful things. That's the measure of this man. What more could an author ask for?<br /><br />So here it is: it's more than the style in that fierce cut that made me want to watch Dravid bat. It's the grace and fibre he brought to the game, and indeed to everything he did. <br /><br />And that's why I now have no reason to watch.</div>http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/no-more-reason.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-6878052517607289682Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:45:00 +00002012-03-06T10:15:56.782+05:30mathematicsJump for your lifeMy fortnightly "A Matter of Numbers" column in <i>Mint</i> went on air last Friday, March 2. <br /><br />This one discusses the antics of fleas, the musings of elephants, and even slips in some speculation about why my daughter is cleaner than me. All that, and it also warns you about the consequences of shivering uncontrollably.<br /><br />With that introduction, I know you're just dying to read it. It's called "Jump for your life" and you'll find it <a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/03/01210310/Jump-for-your-life.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Comments, as ever, welcome.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/jump-for-your-life.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-3120586423176773165Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:42:00 +00002012-03-06T10:12:47.858+05:30deathgujarat#DDGujDiary #4, Ahmedabad campA fourth installment of notes from my trip diary from Gujarat, 2002. These are from a visit to a camp for victims in Ahmedabad. (I tweeted them using the tag #DDGujDiary).<br /><br /><center>***</center><br />* In Ahmedabad, we stop outside a shopping complex that is burned down (maybe looted too?). Nobody else on the road stops. It's been burned, but life around it goes on.<br /><br />* A sixty year-old in the camp used to be a watchman in a building. A mob of 5000, he thinks, surrounded the building and began throwing stones at it. He and his wife ran away. <br /><br />* He shows me a "<i>Rahat Chhavninoon Hangami</i>" card that he says the Government gave him because of the violence. "What's it for?" he asks. I can't answer because I don't know what this means, or of this card distribution programme.<br /><br />* Outside the camp, I notice this large banner: "Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of Gujarat, At Your Service."<br /><br />* Two women I speak to were driven by a mob from their homes in Guptanagar. They went back there to look, a couple of days later. All the houses in the area, including theirs, were burned down. "It doesn't look like a place to live", says one. "There were people standing there with lathis and swords," they tell me, "and they told us to get out."<br /><br />* Later, the Army took the women and their families back again. This time, they were able to approach their once-homes. Where they could, they put locks on the doors. Then they came back to the camp. <br /><br />* Kudratbano, 35, saw her brother, his wife and their six children burned alive in Naroda-Patia. The mob that did this "came from four sides", she says. <br /><br />* Ishu, the son of her other brother, was hit with sticks and thrown on a garbage dump. He lived. He shows me the scars on his head. <br /><br />* His two year-old brother [<i>looks like I didn't record his name</i>] was burned. <br /><br />* Just outside this camp as we leave, a young man yells at us. "We don't want your peace committee!" -- and he and a few others start throwing stones at us. Small stones, but it's frightening anyway. "Take your peace nonsense [<i>shanti bakwas</i> is the phrase I remember clearly] to the RSS!" they shout, still throwing stones. In the distance, at the end of a long road we had walked down to get to the camp, I can see the stones have broken a few windows on our bus. <br /><br />* I'm walking to the buses alongside a monk from our party, young man dressed in saffron robes. Young men point at him, pick up stones. I have no clue what to do, but there's only seconds to think about it, because ...<br /><br />* ... a young woman on a scooter drives up beside us. "Get on behind me!" she orders the monk, quiet but urgent. "Get on right now! I'll take you out!"<br /><br />* The monk sits sideways on her pillion seat. She revs her engine and zips him through the milling shouting crowds to the bus. I see him clambering in. I'm alone, but nobody is interested in me. I run to the bus. Getting on, I see her. There's time to shout: "What's your name?" <br /><br />* I've said it silently and often in these ten years, and I'll say it here: Thank you, Mumtaz, for being brave. For being human. For being human in a time, in a place, where so many others weren't.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/ddgujdiary-4-ahmedabad-camp.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-456534755364062860Sat, 03 Mar 2012 06:49:00 +00002012-03-03T12:19:07.921+05:30deathgujarat#DDGujDiary, #3: DehlolSome more tweets from my #DDGujDiary sequence on Twitter (as @DeathEndsFun) over the last few days.<br /><br /><center>***</center><br />* On the road from Godhra to Baroda, we stop at a mosque that has been burned down. Inside we can see pieces of cloth strewn about, and a small flock of rather calm goats. There's a man standing outside; he says he knows nothing about what happened here. "Nothing?" we ask. "Nothing."<br /><br />* Dehlol village has a burned and completely destroyed mosque. Inside we dan see monkeys running about. (Not goats). Outside, the residents of Dehlol watch us sullenly and silently.<br /><br />* 37 Dehlol residents were pursued to this and killed there. A man tells us that then it was torched and its minaret toppled. Still sullen people still watch us.<br /><br />* In Dehlol a photographer buddy and an old man from our group were surrounded by a mob who demanded their film. They refused. Started to get heated and ugly. A cop saved them.<br /><br />* The cops tell us that the residents of Dehlol had complained, saying our group was harassing them and making them uncomfortable. I had to wonder, could we have said something similar, at least, about those 37 who were chased into a mosque and killed?<br /><br />* A man in a sleeveless vest in Dehlol, glasses and running to flab, says this: "Pakistan attacks us on the border. Obviously we can't go to the border, so we hit back at them here."<br /><br />* "See what Israel is doing to the Palestinians," the same man says admiringly. "That's the treatment we had to give them here."<br /><br />* "For 50 years they have been doings things like Godhra, with many more train burnings. But the press never reports all this." Who's "them" and "they", I want to ask. <br /><br />* (Still with the same man in a vest, running to flab. He's talking to a German blonde and me, standing in middle of Dehlol, large crowd around us.)<br /><br />* "The days of that ch***ya Gandhi, with his turning the other cheek, are gone!" He turns his cheek to me in a way that -- I would never have guessed -- is shockingly crude. <br /><br />* "When people enter our houses and torture us," he says, "we have to react!" The crowd nods. Who entered your home, I ask. Angry silence. <br /><br />* The crowd disperses. We start walking. The same man suddenly says "Come have a soda at my shop." When we get there, he makes us a lime-based drink. Good stuff. But he takes no money, just shakes my hand. <br /><br />* The blonde and I are walking out of Dehlol. It's a frightening, unnerving several minute. Large crowds watch us pass in complete silence, the women in it snickering behind us after we pass.<br /><br />* For 10 years, I've wondered: someone killed 37 people in Dehlol. This flabby guy who wouldn't charge for soda, was he one of the killers?http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/ddgujdiary-3-dehlol.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-8026363817794968375Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:15:00 +00002012-03-01T23:45:29.075+05:30deathgujarat#DDGujDiary, #2Continuing from the <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/ddgujdiary.html">previous post</a>, here are some more notes from my Gujarat 2002 diary. I tweeted these yesterday (as @DeathEndsFun, same Twitter tag #DDGujDiary).<br /><br /><center>***</center><br />* Fatma, 45, ran to the hills without footwear and hid there for three days without food and water. This is because mobs burned her house in Randikpur. <br /><br />* After telling me this, Fatma is quiet, then says out of the blue: "It's a Rs 14 ticket from here [Godhra] to Randikpur." <br /><br />* Yakub whom I met in a camp says: "We can't go back because they have destroyed our homes and turned the area into a <i>maidan</i>." <br /><br />* Young girl says, the <i>sarpanch</i> hid us in a field, telling us we'd be protected. Then he went away. When he came back, he brought many people with him to kill us. <br /><br />* The same girl saw a friend standing in front of her home, saying "My father will definitely come to save us!" Then she was cut down by a mob.<br /><br />* She starts crying quietly as she tells me of that brief incident, and then she tells me three of her uncles were also killed. <br /><br />* 22 yr-old Fatma (another Fatma) hid in the fields too. A mob came -- "there were ten people for each one of us" -- to kill them. She was hit by a <i>lathi</i> and a sword, she fell unconscious, they left.<br /><br />* In Godhra camp alone, at least three different women told me about <i>sarpanches</i> who directed them to fields and then called a mob to attack them.<br /><br />* Zohra, 23, hid with her husband in a cornfield. A mob set fire to the crop. They got up and ran. The mob caught her husband and killed him. She saw it happen. <br /><br />* Bilkis of Randikpur had a three year-old child who was "cut and thrown away". Then twelve men raped her. She is pregnant. <br /><br />* I should point out that I learned about Bilkis from her <i>bua</i> who was with her in camp. Bilkis herself was unable to speak.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/03/ddgujdiary-2.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-7316571313710629434Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:14:00 +00002012-02-29T12:44:00.165+05:30deathgujarat#DDGujDiaryIn 2002, not long after violence erupted across Gujarat, I joined a group of people on a trip through that state, what some of them thought was a journey of compassion. While I believe in compassion, I was admittedly cynical about it applying among people who had done a series of unspeakable things. I went thinking of myself as an observer -- both of what had happened, as well as what kind of reception this idea of compassion would get.<br /><br />We started in Godhra, and went on to Baroda and Ahmedabad, with plenty of stops at smaller villages and towns on the way, and several visits to camps for the victims of the violence. It was a raw, disturbing, nerve-wracking and soul-deadening trip, among the most depressing several days of my life.<br /><br />To remember, ten years on, here are some notes from my diary of those days when I travelled through a massacre-wracked Gujarat. (As @DeathEndsFun, I tweeted these using the tag #DDGujDiary. They are here as they appeared on Twitter, except for expanding any abbreviation necessitated by the 140 character limit).<br /><br /><center>***</center><br />* In Dehlol, we pass a trishul which has an unexpected object fluttering from it: a bra. <br /><br />* Huge hoarding in Godhra, with a portrait of Narendra Modi and these words -- "Gujarat measures 9.9 on the recovery scale."<br /><br />* Met a man called Siraj Patel who had watched three people being killed on the road that runs from Limkheda to Baria to Antala (sp? Can't tell). One of them was his 10th standard son.<br /><br />* Inside the carriage -- <i>that</i> carriage -- at the railway station in Godhra, of all things I notice grains of rice strewn all over the floor. <br /><br />* Also seen on the floor of the carriage in Godhra: shoes, jeans, socks, bottles, twisted metal, pictures of the filmstar Govinda, a metal cup.<br /><br />* The inside of the carriage looks like the barracks in Auschwitz or Dachau. There and here, how could anyone hope to survive? <br /><br />* (Picked up a small handful of ashes in that carriage. They're on my lap now, wrapped in plastic. Ten years on, ashes fly in the breeze).<br /><br />* A half-burnt kid's exercise book at my feet inside the carriage. Its first legible page has these pencilled Hindi words in a careful schoolkid hand: "<i>baal kaan haath gaal naak maathi</i>". Who wrote all that?<br /><br />* Also found in the carriage: several booklets called "Ayodhya", with a picture on the back of the Babri Masjid with people on top of its domes. <br /><br />* Also found in the carriage: Several books printed in Hindi, carrying this title in English: "Ayodhya Guide."<br /><br />* Man in Gurgaon whom I speak to a few days later on the phone, his eldest brother and wife (kids too? I can't tell) died in the fire. "I'm afraid to come to Gujarat", he tells me. <br /><br />* Among the people in our band is a theatre group from Delhi called "Nishant". At the carriage in Godhra, they gather outside and sing.<br /><br />* In a camp in Godhra, Yusufbhai from Kuwajar village says the mob that drove him and several others from his home was shouting "<i>Maro, kaapo, maal loot lo</i>" (kill, cut, steal).<br /><br />* Yusufbhai says the police did nothing to stop the mob. Instead, they told Yusufbhai and the others with him, "save yourself and run".<br /><br />* In a village near Dahod, 70 houses were burned down. In the camp, I met a man from there, his wife and their four kids. They had to run from the village, they stayed in the "jungle" for 3 days without food and water.<br /><br />* He also says 14 members of his family were raped and/or killed.<br /><br />* In the same camp is a 20 year-old girl from Kesharpur. She had a 2 year-old child who was killed. She doesn't know where her husband is.<br /><br />* Salambhai's house in Kuwajar village was burned by a mob. "What is the fault of us villagers," he asks me, "in what happened in Godhra?"<br /><br />* Met two teachers in the camp. One says "We believe in this <i>sarva dharma sambhav</i>; but the people who watched their kids being burned, how will they believe?"<br /><br />* A woman in Godhra camp says the police told her: "You had better run away, or the swords will be used on you!"<br /><br />* Siraj (another Siraj? can't tell) watched three men he knew being burned alive. He tells me how it was done: "They tied branches on them and set them on fire."<br /><br />* Amina's son was "made into 3 pieces" (what I was told was, "<i>unka teen tukde banaye</i>"). A man with him was shot dead. Another man with him was tied up and burned alive.<br /><br />* A ten year-old girl shows me a gash on her back from a sword. She saw her father being attacked and ran to save him; that's when someone slashed at her. She is alive. He is alive.<br /><br />* She tells me about another ten year-old who told the mob "Kill me, but spare my sisters!" Her father was killed with a blow to his head.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/ddgujdiary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-6155610230436909483Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:27:00 +00002012-02-27T16:57:34.463+05:30deathgujaratTruth, ten years onYes, like in South Africa emerging from apartheid, let's have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Gujarat, 2002. Why not?<br /><br />For that matter, let's have a T&RC for Bombay, 1992-93; for Kashmir 1989+; for Delhi, 1984; for Laxmanpur-Bathe, 1997; etc -- but this is a tenth anniversary of Gujarat we're marking, so let's discuss just that for now.<br /><br />The important part of that is that first word, "Truth". Meaning we need to see the perpetrators of ghastly murders come out and tell the truth about what they did. It's called making a clean breast, and there's no substitute for that. <br /><br />Meaning: No rhetoric that we've "moved on", or "much water has flowed down the Sabarmati", or "what's the point of re-opening old wounds that have healed?" No resort to invoking 300-year histories of communal violence. No pointing fingers at previous despicable Congress governments. None of that stuff. Just fronting up to the truth.<br /><br />There's a reason it hasn't happened yet. Making a clean breast of things needs great courage. Far more courage than you need when you're in a mob setting fire to a train, or chopping up defenceless women, even pregnant women. Because you have to look in the mirror, and be true to yourself. Hard to at the best of times, infinitely harder when you've got blood on your hands, or when you're trying to cover up or explain away the blood on your friends' hands. <br /><br />Nevertheless, it's possible, that truth and reconciliation. Let's start with the truth. Right now.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/truth-ten-years-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-3303924133561145329Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:47:00 +00002012-02-24T15:17:40.503+05:30deathgujaratTen yearsComing up to ten years since what I think is one of the worst crimes in Indian history; as also one of the worst breakdowns in law and order in our history. The massacres across Gujarat, of course. <br /><br />There's so much that's already been said about those godawful weeks and months, so much that I don't even want to try finding something new to say. But these few points:<br /><br />* To those who say there should be an end to "raking" up the past, there's just this to say: If there had been some kind of justice for everything that happened then, nobody would be raking up anything. Since there hasn't been that kind of justice, please don't expect silence. The country you live in is itself a testament to the spirit of folks who would not keep silent and who kept raking up injustice.<br /><br />* To those who say we should "move on", there's just this to say: I'm set to meet someone who lost, say, a young son to the violence, who will say "It's true, we should move on." On the contrary: some of these people are the most dogged I've ever knowm, in their pursuit of justice.<br /><br />* To those who speak easily and angrily about the "demonization" of the CM of Gujarat, there's just this to say: This man presided over a collapse of law and order across his state on a nearly unprecedented scale. If it had been any other state, this man's own party would have been leading the calls, and rightly so, for that state's CM to own moral responsibility for this collapse and resign. (Consider, after all, that the CM of Maharashtra lost his job after the terror attacks of November 26, 2008). But in this case, any criticism at all is immediately painted as an insult to a state, the demonization of a man. Both of which charges are nonsense. Understandable nonsense from those who want to sweep a massacre under a carpet, but nonsense nevertheless.<br /><br />* To those who talk of "development" and the "efficiency" of Gujarat's government, there's just this to say: How do those things change the reality that 1000+ people were slaughtered in 2002? But more than that, what is the "efficiency" in failing to prevent those 1000+ being killed?<br /><br />* To those who say "but are you aware of the ground realities in that state, then and now?", there's just this to say: I travelled Gujarat while some of the violence was still happening. I got a pretty good sense of some ground reality, thank you. It was this: 1000+ people had been slaughtered, and those wounds were still raw. That reality has not changed, and does not change because of other claims.<br /><br />* To those who say "but why does nobody speak about these other horrific massacres in state X, under leader Y of party Z?", there's just this to say: Plenty of people speak about those other massacres too; if you choose not to listen for your own reasons, that's nobody's fault but yours. More important, the fact that you make these equations/comparisons is an admission that you know just how horrific Gujarat was, that you know there's been no accounting for it. Face up to yourself, for once.<br /><br />* Finally, to those who say of Gujarat that it was "unfortunate", or "shit happens", or the like, there's just this to say: when a thousand and more Indians are killed, that's not unfortunate shit happening, that's a massacre. Equivocation doesn't change that.<br /><br />Ten years on, I want justice for Indians slaughtered in Godhra, Ahmedabad, Dehlol, Halol, Baroda, and plenty of other places across Gujarat. I think you do too.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/ten-years.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-3073195156523487887Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:36:00 +00002012-02-24T14:06:06.275+05:30educationscienceShame on you, CNR RaoPlagiarism is a continuing bane. Young novelists with a Harvard pedigree do it, newspapers do it; sometimes newspapers plagiarize themselves with hilarious results. (If you catch them at it, that is). <br /><br />Cricket-related examples that I ran into a few years ago: <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2005/11/you-left-out-dazzling.html">You left out dazzling</a>, and <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2005/11/congratulationsvirendra-sehwag.html">Congratulations, Virender Sehwag</a>.<br /><br />The latest example to hit the news has nothing to do with cricket. It's from a paper co-authored by the eminent scientist CNR Rao. There's plenty of coverage in the press, and comment elsewhere by far more informed folks than me, so I won't try to duplicate it. (For example, see Abi's two posts <a href="http://nanopolitan.blogspot.in/2012/02/rao-row.html">The Rao Row</a> and <a href="http://nanopolitan.blogspot.in/2012/02/prof-rao-responds-to-plagiarism-row.html">Prof Rao responds</a>, and Rahul's three posts on his <a href="http://horadecubitus.wordpress.com/">blog</a>).<br /><br />I'm only writing this to vent some steam: I'm just appalled by CNR Rao's reaction to this episode. If he had said nothing, it would have blown over as a relatively minor transgression that even the journal concerned was essentially willing to overlook. But instead, Rao chose to <a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/229512/no-plagiarism-student-copied-few.html">speak to PTI</a> about it. And he says, first of all: <br /><br />"<i>This should not be really considered as plagiarism, but an instance of copying of a few sentences in the text</i>."<br /><br />Just what does that mean? In my dictionary, the word is defined as "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." How does copying of a few sentences from another paper evade this description?<br /><br />But if CNR did not quite cover himself with glory with that remark, he digs himself further in the mire with these:<br /><br />"<i>I myself had written to the Editor that it was best to withdraw the paper … I did not directly produce the manuscript which I normally do</i>."<br /><br />CNR is implying here that he didn't read the paper that carries his name on it (first), and that when he apparently did read it, he himself thought it wasn't worthy of publication. Both of which reflect extremely poorly on an eminent scientist.<br /><br />But CNR sinks below mire, and into despicability, with one final remark. The "copying", he said, happened "because of X" (X being the student whose name appears on the paper). Instead of having the courage and decency to take the blame himself, CNR chooses to blame, by name, the student: thus likely leaving a permanent black mark on a young scientist's career.<br /><br />Shame on you, CNR Rao. I can only hope you are the exception in Indian science, not the rule.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/shame-on-you-cnr-rao.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-8492812838711796488Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:07:00 +00002012-02-24T13:37:23.715+05:30mathematicsStop the world and let me offWhat I like about astronomy is not just the beauty of the night sky, but also the clear mathematical reasoning that underlies predictions of so many cosmic phenomena. Some of that spirit is what I'm trying to get at in my latest "A Matter of Numbers" column for <i>Mint</i>, in the paper last Friday (in that sentence alone, an indication of how much I've neglected this blog). It discusses something we can't hope to see, but we're pretty sure exists. <br /><br />No, I don't mean Lady Gaga.<br /><br />Give me a shout if you recognize the novel mentioned in the last line. That way, I'll know you read the whole thing, and I'll also get a good handle on your age.<br /><br />(No, you won't skip straight to the last line. Right?)<br /><br />Take a look: <a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/02/16225641/Stop-the-world-and-let-me-off.html">Stop the world and let me off</a>.<br /><br />And as always, comments welcome.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/02/stop-world-and-let-me-off.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070362.post-1255032667502575420Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:48:00 +00002012-01-14T01:06:40.845+05:30cricketPast laurelsSeventeen years ago, India played Sri Lanka in a cricket <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63632.html">Test in Bangalore</a>. Sri Lanka crumbled to a heavy defeat by an innings and plenty, but that was hardly the story of this match.<br /><br />In their second innings, chasing 310 just to make India bat again, Sri Lanka had subsided to 179 for the loss of seven wickets at the end of the third day. When play began on the fourth day, India's captain, Mohammed Azharuddin, asked his premier spinner, young Anil Kumble with his stellar career still in front of him, to "<a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/151893.html">bowl wide of the stumps</a>".<br /><br />Kumble had taken two wickets already. Against this team that "seemed to want to get the match over as soon as possible", victory was in sight. There were only Sri Lankan tailenders to remove. Why did Azharuddin tell Kumble to bowl like that?<br /><br />Because another bowler on the team was chasing a record: the (then) highest haul of Test wickets. On that fourth morning, the equation was simple: this bowler needed three more wickets to break the record, there were three more Sri Lankan wickets to winkle out, and all three were tailenders. Thus it was that Kumble got his instructions to bowl wide.<br /><br />Unfortunately, Kumble didn't fully follow the script, because he took the first wicket to fall that morning, at 188. Now the best that the record-chasing bowler could hope for was to equal the record, not beat it. No doubt the instructions were delivered to Kumble again, more sternly this time. <br /><br />He must have complied this time. 27 lustily-hit tailender runs later, the last two tailenders had fallen to the record-chaser, India had won, and he had equalled the record. "He broke down as the emotions of the moment overwhelmed him." Azharuddin was awarded the Man-of-the-Match award, but handed it to him.<br /><br />Of course, what this meant was that the record-chaser needed one more Test to actually break the record. That came a little over a week later, in Ahmedabad, also against Sri Lanka. "<a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/151894.html">The [first] morning had been reserved for the wicket</a>" he needed to get there. He took it in his 8th over, "sparking off a long round of celebrations". Having reached his record, he bowled only one more over in that innings (a measure of the faith his captain had in his abilities, really), only five in Sri Lanka's second innings, and didn't take another wicket as Sri Lanka lost heavily again.<br /><br />But Kapil Dev had his record.<br /><br />No matter that he took exactly 50 percent more Tests to reach the mark than Richard Hadlee had taken to set it. (Hadlee, 86 Tests. Dev, 129 Tests). <br /><br />No matter that he had limped to it in a fashion that was a painful embarrassment to the stellar performer he once had been for India. (Kumble aiming outside the stumps? Please! Makes you cringe. Should have made him cringe.) In his last 20 Tests, he took 54 wickets (2.7 per Test); in his last 10, 20 (2 per Test) -- a clear indication of decline in his once magnificent skills. More evidence of this decline: compare to the 240 wickets he took in his first 60 Tests (4 per Test).<br /><br />But Kapil Dev had his record.<br /><br />So when this man <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/sports-news/chunk-ht-ui-indiavsaustralia2011-otherstories/Your-past-laurels-shouldn-t-help-you-retain-a-berth/Article1-792512.aspx">tells us</a>, referring to the current Indian team, that "past laurels shouldn't help you retain a berth" in the team, about what happens if "you are not performing" … well, you'll forgive me if this stuff sticks in my craw.<br /><br />Big time. Record or no record.<br /><br /><center>***</center><br />I've written in similar vein about Kapil Dev before: <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2006/10/have-to-move-on.html">Have to move one</a>. Also about Kumble himself (and Kapil again) -- Aditya in comments below, please note -- here: <a href="http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2005/02/ten-but-tarnished.html">Ten but tarnished</a>.http://dcubed.dilipdsouza.com/2012/01/past-laurels.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Dilip D'Souza)7